Other discussion on this subject: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21045550" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21045550</a>
Per The Guardian, it's largely due to changes in consumer behaviour - more people booking city breaks directly, less people booking package holidays via travel agents [1]. Global warming may have caused more people to prefer to stay at home in summer. That may have been the tipping point along with Brexit causing uncertainty and a lower pound.<p>1. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/sep/23/thomas-cook-as-the-world-turned-the-sun-ceased-to-shine-on-venerable-tour-operator" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/sep/23/thomas-cook...</a>
> Other government officials said the cost of the repatriation effort was lower than the cost of keeping Thomas Cook in business.<p>Not sure why it’s the government issue to issue flights to people.
I remember going to travel agent branches in the town centre with parents, but now it's all online. Thomas Cook are overpriced and aimed at older people who aren't able to use the internet to shop around. Their business model was not going to last.
Well according to the current climate change crisis, that's one less airliner heating up the planet. This sacrifice is perhaps a benefit to saving the planet anyway.<p>Fantastic news for climate change activists I suppose.
They abruptly shut down overnight leaving a very large number of people stranded away from home.<p>Now the government has to pay 150 million to bring them home.<p>Why not do a gracefull shutdown...???